Jul. 2, 2013
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A scene from Cirque Du Soleil / Veronique Vial, Cirque Du Soleil

by Bryan Alexander, USA TODAY

by Bryan Alexander, USA TODAY

More than 1 million people have watched Cirque du Soleil's KÃ? since it opened in Las Vegas in 2005, marveling at the technical mastery that allows performers to seemingly defy gravity at dizzying heights.

But even more impressive, in the view of renowned tech blogger Paul Carr, were the inner workings backstage, which he was allowed to observe during a show in 2011."It was like air traffic control," he says.

"You suddenly realize how many people are working so hard to keep the people safe onstage. It was the most safety-conscious thing I have ever seen. And you know why it has to be, because people will die if something goes wrong."

Something did go very wrong at KÃ? during the second show on a seemingly routine Saturday night in the theater at the MGM Grand hotel. Sarah Guillot-Guyard, a 31-year-old Cirque performer, was suspended from a safety harness clipped to a cable as she moved up and down a 50-foot vertical stage, along with 16 other performers, during the show's battle scene climax - just as she had been countless times during her seven years on the show.

But suddenly Guillot-Guyard, a mother of two children, horrifyingly fell to the stage.

She "was being hoisted up the side of the stage and then just plummeted down," spectator Dan Mosqueda told The Las Vegas Sun. "Initially, a lot of people in the audience thought it was part of the choreographed fight. But you could hear screaming, then groaning, and we could hear a female artist crying from the stage."

As the stunned audience was dismissed from the theater, Guillot-Guyard was rushed to the University Medical Center. The Clark County coronor pronounced her dead.

Shockwaves continue to reverberate. KÃ? was immediately shut down until at least next Tuesday pending investigations by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the coroner's office and Cirque du Soleil. The closure does not affect the 18 other Cirque shows across the country.

Speculation about what could have caused the accident has just begun: Was it a mechanical malfunction or human error? A Cirque representative, Renee-Claude Menard, would not discuss the open investigation. She would confirm only that Guillot-Guyard did not slip from her safety harness, as some initial reports indicated.

"All Cirque du Soleil employees, including our 1,300 artists, are mourning," Menard wrote in an e-mail. "We are fully collaborating with the proper authorities to determine the events that led to this tragic accident."

Cirque du Soleil has never had a show fatality since performances began in 1984. But that does not mean performers don't prepare for the possibility long before stepping onstage.

Erica Linz, who starred in Cirque du Soleil's 2012 3-D movie, Worlds Away, was an aerial performer in KÃ? for six years. In an interview in October at the MGM Grand theater, during prolonged but regular safety checks, she talked about the extensive training each performer receives, perfecting every maneuver on the ground before slowly moving to higher altitudes. Each night, all performers are in constant radio contact with safety personnel.

"There's multiple rescue plans for everything. We'll do rescue training and go through every potential scenario," said Linz, who added that she never had to resort to one of these measures. If there are issues with the airbags below the stage, performers are told "no jumps" into their ear monitors, and lightning flashes onstage as a second signal.

Cirque du Soleil founder Guy Laliberte wrote on the company's Facebook wall: "We are reminded, with great humility and respect, how extraordinary our artists are each and every night."

He might have added how great is the danger they face each night.

During a preview performance Thursday of the new Cirque show Michael Jackson ONE, an aerial artist slipped free from a rope used in an acrobatic number and fell to the ground, suffering a mild concussion.

Laliberte and other Cirque officials were in Las Vegas on Saturday to celebrate ONE's opening when Guillot-Guyard's accident took place.

"On the night when Cirque was really reviving its brand and celebrating, this tragedy strikes. It's terrible," says Norm Clarke, a columnist for the Las Vegas Journal and Review. "But if you measure it against the number of shows and performers they have, it's pretty remarkable. It's just amazing that something like this hasn't happened before."